The invention relates to an apparatus for processing physical documents, such as postal items.
Apparatuses for processing physical documents, such as postal items, generally have modular character in the sense that they are made up of a number of devices which are exchangeable with similar, but not wholly identical, devices which can perform partly corresponding and partly different operations. Consequently, such devices can be combined in a large variety of configurations.
Further, the apparatuses typically have a number of optional facilities, such as stations for folding, insert feeding or sorting, or facilities which some users do and some do not have at their disposal. This means that many designs of the control structure are necessary. Sometimes, moreover, complex adaptations are necessary to adapt the control structure, and in particular the control software, to new developments that were not anticipated in the original design. Users who, for the purpose of preparing messages, utilize equipment of third parties, for instance by contracting out the production of postal items as such and/or having it carried out in places close to the distribution area of the postal items, are moreover often faced, in a relatively short period of time, with equipment having different configurations and possibilities.
In addition, there are systems allowing particular stations to be simply removed temporarily or replaced with other stations. The product line marketed by applicant under the designation “SI-92”, for instance, has a transport unit of the type TR-7 on which easily detachable insert feed units are placed.
Also, particular stations or functions of a device may be temporarily absent, for instance in that objects or substances to be fed have run out or are absent because of service or repair. This means that the control structure of an installed system must also be suitable to drive a particular individual device in different configurations.
Well-known are systems where the configuration of individual stations is automatically made known to a central control unit and the central control unit can drive the stations individually, as known, for instance, from European patent publication 1336929. In this document, an apparatus is described where a central control unit, with the aid of a program code, can drive a number of stations each separately. To that end, in program code for the central control unit, a separate processing control component is present for each of the respective stations. The processing control component can communicate with the station and drive the station.
A disadvantage of such an apparatus, however, is that the central control unit is to be provided with processing control components for driving a great multiplicity of types of processing modules. Also, when adding unknown types of processing modules, new software must be introduced for the control thereof, while upon removal of processing modules, superfluous program code remains present in the central control unit.